Parker County Today June 2016 | Page 28

Trinity Christian Academy Valedictorian Katie McCullough Parents John & Renee McCullough GPA 4.15 Katie is looking forward to attending Baylor University in the fall where she will be in the pre-med track in the University Scholars program – the honors college at Baylor. She’s hoping to go to medical school and is considering pediatric oncology as her specialty. “I’m just really drawn to kids with cancer. I feel like they really need an advocate. I love working at Cook’s because they make kids feel normal and like they aren’t sick. They make their bad experience less bad,” she said. She’s attended Trinity Christian for 13 years. She likes all of the things that her class has done together including unity retreats. She’s looking forward to their class mission trip to the Bahamas later in May. They will be working at an after school program for underprivileged kids doing improvements and repairs to its facility and then working and playing with the kids in the afternoons. She will m iss the people in Parker County most including her twin sister who is attending another school down I35 in Austin at UT and friends that she’s gone to school with most of which for a decade or more. Football games, school spirit and learning more things specific to what she wants to do is what she’s looking forward to at Baylor. “I love Parker County, it’s the people that make it,” she said. Salutatorian Brianna Ludwig JUNE 2016 PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY John & Jodie Ludwig GPA 4.13 This salutatorian isn’t going far away to school, but she has high aspirations for herself when she gets there. Brianna will be attending SMU in the fall working towards a BBA in Administration, but has plans to attend law school and become a corporate lawyer as her career. “My dad is an executive in a company and I always looked up to that, but I’ve always been interested in law. It’s a good way to combine the two,” she said. At first I didn’t know I wanted to go to law school, but I knew I wanted to get a business degree,” she continued. She’s lived in Parker County for 12 years moving here from Parker, Colorado outside of Denver when her dad had a job change. She’s attended Trinity 26 Christian since the first grade. She’s a volleyball player and has been on the varsity squad since her sophomore year. One of her best memories of school happened this year as the TCS girls competed for the state championship match in their home gym. Although they weren’t successful in their bid for the championship, “It was fun playing my last game in my home gym,” Brianna said. She’s going to miss school the most when she goes off to college, “It takes up most of my life,” she said. Meeting new people in college is what she’s looking forward to having graduated with only 30 in their class at Trinity. Weatherford Christian School Valedictorian Jennah Foland Parents Jeff and Jennifer Foland GPA 4.377 A summer internship studying creative writing and medicine is leading this Parker County grad back to the green hills of Scotland for college. Jennah attended a summer program at the University of St. Andrews last summer and will be returning there this fall to study business and management. She will miss having lunch in her former English teacher’s room, Mrs. Favor. “We would talk about books but mainly we would just talk about life,” she said. Attending a school-sponsored mission trip to Haiti with five other students was a bright spot of her year. “We went to a school that’s almost the exact size of WCS and helped them update their sponsor information. It’s a beautiful country but it’s lost in poverty. The people there are really amazing. Their faith down there is unbelievable. They have nothing, but have so much joy,” she said. Going so far away there are a lot of things she will miss about home, “Sweet tea, Dr Pepper…southern hospitality, and my family for sure. Part of me is really excited to be going away, but the other part of me is a little bit nervous to be away from the familiarity and knowing everybody.” Salutatorian Hannah Burks Parents Gene & Amy Burks GPA 4.313 Hannah is becoming a Red Raider this fall but is so far undecided on her major, but she knows she is going to be a part of the honors program at Texas Tech. “I really loved Texas Tech when I visited,” she said. She’s also Continued on page 30